Year 1626 (1626) Accession Br.L.4 Created 1626 | Medium Oil on canvas | |
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Dimensions 68 cm × 56.5 cm (27 in × 22.2 in) Frans Hals artwork Portrait of a Man in a Yellowish, Portrait of a Woman Standing, Cunera van Baersdorp, Boy with a Glass and a Lute, Laughing Boy with a Flute | ||
Two laughing boys with mug of beer is a painting by Frans Hals showing a Kannekijker (mug-looker). Someone looking into a mug refers to an old Dutch word for a glutton, greedy for more. This visual theme was also used to depict sight as one of the five senses, and various people have argued about whether this portrait was meant as one in a series of the five senses along with Two Boys singing for hearing and a variant version of The Smoker for smell:
Hals has an accomplice peering over his shoulder, and besides the other two paintings already mentioned, this theme of a main subject with a secondary witness was common to many of his paintings of the 1620s:
The theme of looking into a mug was also used by Hals when he painted the portrait of Peeckelhaeringh who turns to the viewer to show his mug. This painting of two laughing boys with mug of beer is in the collection of the Hofje van Mevrouw van Aerden and was stolen on 27 April 2011, but was recovered on 28 October 2011.